Ask a college what it will miss about Azure Lab Services and the first answer is usually quota hours: a number of hours each student gets for the term, after which their machine stops. A Finnish university's Windows Server course gave each student 45. Microsoft's own forum answer to a customer asking about replacements said nothing else replaces it directly.
Here is how Hyperamplify Labs does it.
Hours per student
When a teacher creates a lab, they set hours per student, or leave it empty for no limit. The teacher can add hours to one student at any time, for a resit or a student who lost time to illness.
- Start is refused once a student's hours are used up, with a clear message.
- A running machine stops at the limit, within a few minutes.
- The student sees the time left when 15 minutes or less remain.
- The teacher sees every student's hours used against their limit, on one screen.
A student's hours are the hours their machine runs, the same hours the college pays for. One number, no surprises.
The tail after a student leaves
A machine keeps running for 30 minutes after a student closes the tab, so a dropped connection or a coffee break does not lose their work. That time counts. A student who is finished can press Reset, which ends the machine at once and stops the clock.
If you set hours for short sittings, allow for the tail. Ten one-hour sittings can use up to fifteen hours.
Term end dates
Every class lab has an end date. When it passes, every machine in the lab ends and Start is refused with "lab ended". The teacher still sees the lab and every session. Move the date forward and the lab reopens.
You do not have to remember to shut anything down at the end of term, and nobody gets billed for a forgotten machine over the holidays.
Shutdown when nobody is using it
Separately from hours, a machine ends:
- 30 minutes after the student closes the console, or
- after two hours with the console open and no keyboard or mouse input, with a warning on screen 10 minutes before.
We do not use CPU as the signal, so a long software install is not mistaken for an idle student.
Why each machine ended
Every ended machine records why: idle, hour limit, lab ended, or reset. When a student says "my machine disappeared", the teacher can see exactly what happened.
Get started and tell us how your course sets hours today.